


Smile

by 573114



Category: General Hospital
Genre: Bad Parenting, Character Study, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-10
Updated: 2018-06-10
Packaged: 2019-05-20 08:14:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14890860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/573114/pseuds/573114
Summary: Caroline Benson just wants to feel loved. And she'll do anything so people will smile at her.





	Smile

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after hearing Virginia Benson talk about Carly's childhood.

Caroline Benson was six years old. Her golden hair shined in the sun, her cheeks were plump with precious baby fat, and she was always running around in pretty floral dresses that made the other girls whine with envy. She loved it when she smiled at people, smiled with all of her might, and they couldn't help but smile back.

Her mother didn't always smile back.

 

xxx

 

Caroline Benson was eight years old. Not as many people smiled back at her now. She wore the same dresses, had the same shining hair, but people didn't stop to coo about how adorable she was. So she tried harder. Gymnastics was one of her specialties, and she showed off the flips she had learned practically overnight. Many people were impressed -- but it just wasn't the same. Before, all she had to do was smile. Now she had to fling herself through the air to earn those smiles.

Her mother told her not to ruin her pretty dresses with all of that jumping around. Her mother didn't understand. Always at work. Giving her smiles that didn't quite reach her eyes. That's how Caroline knew something must be wrong with her. Because all of the other mothers smiled at their daughters just fine. Easy as breathing. Caroline wasn't good enough for that. Her mother's breathing was labored with the burden of her.

 

xxx

 

Caroline Benson was ten years old. And there were more smiles now, thankfully. She was developing a little earlier than most of the other girls. Her training bra would soon have to be swapped out for a genuine one. Something with lace and a tiny satin bow, she hoped. She smiled just like before, and she didn't even have to resort to putting on a show before some of the men would smile back. When no one else was around, they would tell her that she was pretty, that she was going to be a heart-breaker when she got a little older. That they would wait for her until then. She'd wink at them and wiggle her hips a little and they'd laugh, their middle-aged faces crinkling with delight.

Her mother lost it one day when she came home late, with a C on a math test to boot. Red-faced and shrieking, her mother said that maybe Frank wouldn't have left if not for her. That was the first time Caroline ran away. In the rainy night her mother drove all around town to find her. When her mother held her soaked, shivering body at a park, Caroline smiled. But the smile didn't reach her eyes.

 

xxx

 

Caroline Benson was thirteen years old. She had a project in one of her classes about her personal history. She spent hours working on a beautiful poster board to present to her teacher and classmates, and she gathered a bunch of the photographs her mother kept in the closet. One of her favorites was the one taken in the hospital where she was born. A soft pink blanket was wrapped around her tiny body. When it was her turn to do her presentation, things were going well, until Jennifer H. suddenly jumped to her feet and pointed accusatorily at that very photograph. "Hey, that's a picture of me!" she shouted, showing everyone the identical one she had brought from home. Kids started to laugh. To ask if she wanted to be Jennifer H. that badly. To suggest that she was an undercover alien or something. Caroline's golden world blurred and swirled. She tore the photograph into pieces and a room full of 8th graders watched those pieces rain down onto the carpet.

Her mother's smiles made more sense now. Tears in her eyes, she threw every photograph of herself that she could find into the fireplace, and she watched all of herself, all of her life's smiles turn to ashes. Like Caroline Benson had never existed at all. When her mother came home and dropped her purse in shock, she yelled and stomped her feet and demanded to know just who exactly she was. Her mother cried and cried. Asked why she had to make everything so difficult.

 

xxx

 

Caroline Benson was sixteen years old. Carly Roberts would always be sixteen years old, six feet below her every aching step.

Kathy Rivers, on the other hand, was twenty years old, back home from college for the weekend and looking for a good time, no commitment. Her tight black dress hugged her every delicate curve. Her bright red lipstick caught everyone's eye. Mark was 30 and probably married. Tim was in his 20s. Robert might have been 50 and smelled like booze. They all smiled at her the way they used to do when she was ten. Hungry smiles. But a hungry smile was better than none at all. Sometimes they bought her things. Sometimes they tried to contact her again. But she would always lie and run and hide. Because she knew that getting too close was dangerous. She'd risk losing their smiles.

Her mother was different now. Smaller, somehow. Aged with regret. She had given up pestering Caroline about the absences and the bad grades and the suspensions. She never knew what her daughter was up to. And it was better that way. Her mother had made it clear long ago that she wanted a girl who was quiet and good. But Caroline wasn't either of those things anymore. She screamed at the top of her lungs in the night. She got in a strange man's car with no thought of the consequences. She was stained and ugly and unlovable. No longer worth smiling at outside of a bar or a hotel room.

 

xxx

 

 ~~Caroline Benson~~ Carly Roberts was 22 years old.

And Tony Jones always smiled at her.


End file.
